Trump praises Lech Wałęsa in front of Solidarity leader’s foes

WARSAW — U.S. President Donald Trump singled out the historic Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa for praise during a speech in Warsaw organized and attended by members of Poland’s ruling party — who despise the former trade union leader and accuse him of collaborating with the communist regime.

“We are pleased that former President Lech Wałęsa, so famous for leading the Solidarity Movement, has joined us today also,” said Trump, thanking Wałęsa for his attendance three times. When the 73-year-old former Polish president and Nobel laureate got to his feet to acknowledge Trump’s words and bow, there were boos mixed in with the applause, according to reporters at the scene.

Much of the audience for Trump’s speech at the monument to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis, in Krasinski Square, was made up of officials and followers of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), with a smattering of opposition figures.

The PiS consistently depicts Wałęsa, via its own statements and the pro-government media, as a secret collaborator with the communist regime that he helped to bring down as leader of the Solidarity trade union protests in the 1980s.

Unconfirmed attempts by the Polish government to get Trump’s staff to remove any mention from Wałęsa from the speech clearly failed. Trump did apparently stop short of holding a separate meeting with Wałęsa, even though previous U.S. presidents to visit Poland have done so — since George H.W. Bush dined with Wałęsa at his modest apartment in Gdańsk in 1989, shortly after the election that ejected the communists from power.

Last year, Barack Obama used the occasion of a NATO summit in Warsaw to add his voice to Wałęsa’s criticisms of the PiS government for undermining democracy, which has pitted it against the European Commission and European Council (the latter headed by former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk). Wałęsa is planning to participate in a major anti-government protest in Warsaw next week, meaning more publicity and international media attention for the ex-president — the last thing PiS wants.

There has already been talk in Washington of Trump, who is an admirer of Wałęsa, inviting the former president to visit him at the White House.

Wałęsa won admiration in America for a speech he delivered to the U.S. Congress in November 1989 just days after East Germans started to stream across the Berlin Wall and communism began collapsing all over the Soviet bloc. He started the speech with the words “We, the People!” — from the preamble to the Constitution of the United States — which prompted a long ovation.

The PiS prefers to promote former President Lech Kaczyński — who died in an air crash in 2010 and was the twin brother of the powerful PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński — as the most important and heroic figure in the struggle against the communists. Kaczyński himself doesn’t mince words when referring to Wałęsa and once said of him in an interview: “Big intellectual deficit, character faults and a horrible past” — the latter in reference to the allegation that Wałęsa was a secret police informer.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article had an erroneous attribution for Wałęsa’s speech in the U.S. Congress.

Marcin

Ajhber

@JR
The show was meant for domestic consumption. The populace has not noticed such subtle points. They were told to offend Wałęsa and the opposition leaders, so they did that. They shouted “Thieves!” at the opposition leaders although none of the latter has ever been involve in a scam, while the most obvious thieves are in the Law and Justice, like senator Grzegorz Bierecki or Malgorzata Sadurska.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 12:47 AM CEST

Ajhber

@JR
The show was meant for domestic consumption. The populace has not noticed such subtle points. They were told to offend Wałęsa and the opposition leaders, so they did that. They shouted “Thieves!” at the opposition leaders although none of the latter has ever been involve in a scam, while the most obvious thieves are in the Law and Justice, like senator Grzegorz Bierecki, who has robbed a network of “cooperative” banks SKOK causing many ancruptcies.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 12:52 AM CEST

Vishnou

He praises him…. So what? Everybody does. Does he also “praise” the right wing government in place? Surely he does, narrow-minded as he is. Did he manage to sell substantial military equipment to Poland, making America great again? Somewhat easy to turn to Poland to try and be popular. The EU as a powerful entity is a pain in the ass, isn’t it? So let’s try and flatter one of his problem members. So transparent..

Posted on 7/7/17 | 12:50 PM CEST

Tomek

Except that Walesa WAS paid informant of the communist secret service. Do you need more convincing evidence than his hand written reports with the handwriting proven by most renowned handwriting experts? OK, you may accept (or even praise it) but please do not deny it any longer!

Posted on 7/7/17 | 1:39 PM CEST

Cheryl Gumulauski

President Trump’s entire speech was about being proud of who you are and what you endured, and defending your sovereignty and liberty. How ironic that he went to Poland before meeting Putin or going to Germany. Better yet, the irony of Lech Walesa standing with Trump while George Soros (who more than any funded the solidarity movement and polish resistance) the criminal architect of globalisation, who believes the world is his playhouse and all the people in it his Barbie dolls, along with his imperialist, genocidal, undemocratic Open Borders institute is what is standing behind and directing Angela Merkel. I love the irony! It doesn’t get better.

Posted on 7/8/17 | 12:24 AM CEST

marie

Walesa from day one of Solidarity Movement was secret police paid informant. That was the joke communists made on Polish nation. And that joke continued through 27 years of so called 3rd republic. How could Poles win, when men on very top was communists puppet?